


Woe or Wonder

by jouissant



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: AU, Academy Era, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-29
Updated: 2010-06-29
Packaged: 2017-10-10 07:46:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/97335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jouissant/pseuds/jouissant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What do you want me to say? I've sat here and listened to the testimony, and every one of them--Spock, Uhura, Gaila--everything they said is true. Was I compromised? Sure. Trouble is, I…I look back over it, and damned if I think I could have done anything different."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Woe or Wonder

**Author's Note:**

> **Notes**: Written for Trekreversebang.   
> **Themes/Warnings**: AU Academy-era. Shakespeare-inspired epic tragedy, (i.e. major [offscreen] character death.)   
> Gen, but could possibly be read as unrequited Kirk/McCoy.

PERSONAL FILE: MCCOY, LEONARD  
CURRENT RANK: CADET  
TRANSCRIPT OF DISCIPLINARY HEARING (EXCERPT)   
STARDATE 2257.152

 

ADMIRAL BARNETT: Cadet McCoy, this council has heard testimony from Commander Spock and Cadets Uhura and Gaila regarding the events of the past several weeks. The overwhelming conclusion we have reached is that your actions in the Kirk tragedy were unduly influenced by your personal relationship with James Kirk. You allowed yourself to be emotionally compromised to the degree that you willfully overlooked your duty to the Federation, to Starfleet, and to your fellow officers.

This council recommends a mandatory suspension from Starfleet Academy effective immediately. Reinstatement remains a possibility pending a full conduct review. Do you wish to respond to these allegations?

CADET McCOY: What do you want me to say? I've sat here and listened to the testimony, and every one of them--Spock, Uhura, Gaila--everything they said is true. Was I compromised? Sure. Trouble is, I…I look back over it, and damned if I think I could have done anything different.

 

***

 

_HORATIO: What is it ye would see? If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search._

 

Jim stared at the off-white square of card in his hands, shaking his head over and over. "I don't believe it. I just don't fucking believe it."

He looked up, presumably looking me in the face, but his eyes were soft and slightly out of focus. They looked past me, over my shoulder to the curling class schedule I had tacked to the wall over the desk.

"Two months, Bones. She waited two goddamn months."

I crossed the room, coming to stand next to him, and put a hand on his shoulder tentatively. "Hey. I know. It's okay, Jim."

"No, it is not fucking okay."

He tossed the card on the floor. I got the impression he wished it was heavier. I knew how it felt to want to break, to smash. I resisted the temptation to hand him a glass, something that would shatter satisfyingly against the wall. No, that wouldn't end well.

He was shaking. I could feel it against my hand, through the thin fabric of his t-shirt. My little finger curled against his neck; the skin was warm. I let my hand drop back down to my side. Jim sighed, and the tension bled out of him just enough that I no longer feared for the immediate fate of my glassware. He ran his hands through his hair roughly.

"I gotta go to class," he said, finally.

"Sure," I said. "Get going and we'll talk about it later, okay?"

"Sounds good. And Bones? I...I've been a real piece of work the past couple months. I just wanted to say thanks. For putting up with me, I mean."

I clapped him on the shoulder again. "Not a problem, Jim. Now get your ass to xenolinguistics and I'll buy you a beer after."

He stood, stretching like a cat. He made a face. "Fuck, we've got a quiz today."

"Two beers, then. Deal?"

"Deal. Later, Bones. And thanks again." He turned and shot me a grin on the way out the door, and if I wasn't me, if I hadn't been in the thick of it with this kid for the past four months--shit, for the past two years-- I might've been fooled.

The door closed, and I sat heavily on the edge of the bed. Leaning forward, I plucked the card from where it lay on the floor. I read it once, then twice. I exhaled.

_Together with their families, Winona Kirk and Francis Harper request the honor of your presence at a celebration of their marriage..._

"Shit."

***

When I met him on the quad after my afternoon lab, Jim looked like the cat that ate the canary in spite of it all. The knot in my stomach loosened just a little. It was hard with Jim sometimes, hard to know how things were going to go over. Right now, though, Jim seemed content to focus on two facts: he had apparently aced his xenoling quiz and he was currently owed two beers.

"Why don't you just make it a six pack? You're two-thirds of the way there already," he goaded. "I'm pretty sure you'll lose another bet sooner or later, anyway."

"I didn't lose shit," I replied. "This was an offer made out of the goodness of my heart. Besides, as a medical professional, I can't recommend the use of depressants in this situation."

"Yeah, yeah, I hear you. Worried I'll drive myself to drink again, are we?"

His tone was light, but his voice wavered just a bit on the end of the sentence. And why not? It was true enough. I'd picked him up out of a pool of his own vomit more than enough over the past four months. Not my ideal Sunday morning, but you do what you have to. I bit my lip.

"Bones, look, I--" Whatever Jim was about to say was interrupted by a blur of red and green.

"How about that xenoling quiz? Pretty brutal, right?" Gaila murmured into Jim's chest. "Sorry to interrupt, but I needed a little physical contact after all those Romulan verbs."

"Your roommate couldn't oblige you?" I drawled, looking past her to Uhura, who rolled her eyes.

"Her roommate has no sympathy for people--or Orions--who stay up all night not-studying and keep other people locked out of their rooms until the wee hours."

"Oh, Nyota, I've been apologizing to you since before class. And you didn't need to study, anyway- you know those conjugations cold. Besides, you've got your very own Vulcan to practice on."

Nyota flushed a little at that. "Romulan and Vulcan are not the same language. Just for starters, the glottal stops are--"

"Enough! I get it! I'll buy you a drink to make it up to you. Many, many drinks, if you want. And I'll do that thing we talked about, with my--"

Now Nyota flushed in earnest. "Shut. It." She gave me a wide smile that didn't quite make it to her eyes. "So. You two are headed to the Elsinore, am I right?"

"Hell yeah we are," cut in Jim. "Best happy hour in San Francisco. Two-credit pints. Bones, I think we should agree on the retail value of two bottles of beer and then you can buy me that amount in happy hour pints. Sound like a deal?"

I rolled my eyes. "You think way too much for your own good, kid."

He draped his arms over Gaila and Uhura's shoulders. Uhura stepped neatly out of the way, and Jim stuck his tongue out at her. "Ladies? Care to join?"

He walked off ahead with Gaila. She gesticulated wildly, telling a story about the guy she'd locked herself into her room with. Uhura hung back, falling into step next to me. "You're buying him drinks? Len, are you sure--"

"You want to know what he got in the mail today, Nyota? A goddamn invitation to his mother's wedding."

She was quiet for a moment, then let out a long, low whistle. "You are kidding me. It's been, what, like five months?"

"Four."

She looked at the ground. "Shit. Well, hell. I'd be drinking too."

"I'm watching him, Nyota. I won't let it get...well. Like last time."

She nodded, shoving her hands in into the utility pockets of her reds. "Okay." Jim's laughter drifted back to me on the wind.

Several pints of beer later, I sat back and squinted into the gold late-spring light. Jim's fingers tangled in the ends of Gaila's hair. Uhura had her PADD out under the table, reading a message with a small, secret smile on her face. The tension at the corners of Jim's eyes was almost gone, and it was easy to forget, easy to pretend away the past four months. I _won't_ let it, I thought. I won't.

***

I was sitting on my bed, back against the wall, when I heard the knock.

It was late, but I couldn't sleep. Jim was off with Gaila somewhere, maybe in her room, pissing Nyota off. Or maybe they'd found something else to do. Another bar, another...being. Gaila was sweet. She helped the best way she knew how. _That's how you help, isn't it, Bones?_ The little voice in my head sounded suspiciously like Jim. Funny, that.

_The way you know how._ The empty tumbler and the emptying bottle next to it.

The knock.

It was soft at first, then loud and insistent, heedless of the hour. I groaned, hauling my ass off the bed and over to the door. If I stretched, I could reach the knob from up by my pillow and lean out into the hallway. But I felt weirdly vulnerable, like I wanted to be standing. "Hold your horses, be out in a minute."

I opened the door. A sliver of warm light split the room, widening as I pulled the door open all the way and looked left, then right. There was no one there. The light bulb in the hallway flickered once and went out.

Jim and Gaila were still joined at the hip at breakfast the next morning. They walked up to my table hand-in-hand as I bolted down my eggs. I stood to leave, taking a hasty sip of too-hot coffee and wincing at the burn that spread across my mouth.

"Godammit, this replicated shit is swill."

"Morning to you too, Bones."

I started to say something in response but it came out sounding like a growl. "Double shift. I'll be late tonight."

Jim snorted. "Okay, honey. I won't wait up."

I rolled my eyes. "Watch it, you. I think you're due for an allergy hypo here pretty quick, and I've got a whole classroom full of Medical cadets who need the practice."

He waved his hands like some horror-movie heroine. "Ooh, I'm so scared."

***

I straggled back home after shift with a bag of greasy takeout. I ate without tasting, popped the top on a bottle of beer and took a long slug. I felt the buzz start to creep over me. I sat staring out the window for a long time, watching the little yellow squares of window in the residence tower opposite. I could feel the fatigue deep in my bones.

The comm beeped and I woke up. The clock read eleven-thirty, but couldn't remember falling asleep. I rolled over to the nightstand and smacked the button. "McCoy."

"Len?"

"Nyota? What's wrong?" There was an odd cant to her voice; it was just a shade too high and it sounded like there was liquid at the back of her throat.

"I think you should get over here. Gaila---well. Gaila should tell you herself. But you should know...it's about Jim."

Shit. "Is he there now?"

"No, he...we don't know where he is."

"Okay, you sit tight. I'll be there in a minute."

"Okay." She sounded very, very young, and in that moment the sinking feeling settled into my gut and it hit me. I was scared, really, truly scared.

"Leonard?"

"Yes?"

"Bring your med kit."

Ten minutes later I was knocking on Nyota and Gaila's door in Tower B. I'd taken the stairs two at a time and sweat beaded on my brow, trickling past my ears down into my collar. I ran a hand through my hair, checking myself out in the smooth glass of the door in some weird mockery of a guy picking up his date.

Uhura opened the door just a crack and blinked through, one big brown eye visible through the sliver, rimmed with red. I felt rather than heard the whir of the identity scan. It made me twitch. It chirped agreeably and I saw my ID picture pop up on the security monitor. She smiled wanly and slid the door the rest of the way open.

"Sorry. We're kind of jumpy." Spock stood behind her, hands at his lower back. He wasn't all that tall, but the guy sure had the capacity to loom when he wanted. He inclined his head politely in my direction. I nodded back.

Gaila sat cross-legged on her side of the room, back up against her bed. It looked as if she'd scrambled off of it, the tangle of sheets and pillows following her path onto the floor. Her hair was mussed and a thin line of blood ran from nose to chin. She wasn't crying; I couldn't think whether or not Orion even had tear ducts same as humans, if I'd ever bothered to learn about Orion physiology apart from the pheromones.

The oversight embarrassed me. I saw a lot of human cadets these days, lots of alcohol poisoning and doling out contraceptives. I obviously needed to brush up on my xenobio.

"Hey," I said. "Gaila."

She looked up at me and blinked. "Hey, Bones." She was the only person besides Jim who ever called me that. Apparently there was an Orion homonym that made the nickname some kind of pun.

"Want to tell me what happened?" I turned back to Nyota. "Should we be calling the cops here? Or security?"

Behind me, Gaila stirred. "No. I...I just wanted you to check me out, make sure everything was okay. I think...I think I'm fine."

"You're bleeding," I said plainly.

"I kind of fell off the bed," she said. She sounded like she should be blushing, but her skin was uniformly green.

"And how exactly did that happen?"

"It was so weird. I was asleep. Nyota was out with Spock and I stayed in to get some work done, but I decided to call it a night early. I went to sleep, and something woke me up. I don't know how much later it was, an hour? Maybe two? Anyway, I sat up because I could feel someone else in the room, and I guess I was pretty close to the edge because that's when I fell off. But anyway, I could smell him. It was Jimmy. He...he was just standing there in the corner, watching me. He didn't say anything, didn't even blink. Just stood there in the dark."

"He said nothing?"

"Nope. Nothing at all."

"How long was he here for?"

"After I woke up? Five minutes or so. I tried to talk to him, ask him what he was doing and how he got past the security lock, but he just...left."

"And then?'

She rolled her eyes. I felt a stab of relief at the familiarity of it. "And _then_ I triple locked the door and commed Nyota because the whole thing was weirder than a drunk Vulcan." I glanced sideways at Spock, waiting for a lecture on how Vulcans were actually spared the dubious effects of alcohol or somesuch, but he appeared to wring just enough sanguinity out of that turnip of a heart to keep his mouth shut.

Gaila continued. "And then Nyota got all worried when she saw the blood, and called you." She looked pointedly at her roommate. "But I'm _fine_.

"We'll see about that. You two--" I gestured at Spock and Nyota--"out."

"I'm her best friend," Nyota said indignantly.

"And I'm a medical doctor, and this is a _medical exam_. Ever hear of doctor-patient confidentiality?"

She took a step forward, mouth open like she was going to tell me exactly what she thought of me and my medical exam, but Spock stepped forward too, put a hand on her shoulder.

"Nyota," he said simply. He leaned over and spoke softly into her ear. Her shoulders fell.

"Okay," she said. "Okay. But I swear, McCoy, if he hurt her...I don't care if you are his best friend, I don't care how much shit he's going through. I'm going straight to 'Fleet."

I nodded in slow motion. I felt like I was seeing everything from some faraway vantage point, maybe the ceiling, maybe the moon. "Yeah. I got it."

 

***

This time I knew I was asleep. I knew because I was dreaming. I dreamed of my backyard, the way it was when I was a kid. Tire swing, tree house- the whole bit. In the dream it was summer and I was banging through the screen door and running down into the grass. I could feel it beneath my bare feet, rocks and grass and mud. I stumbled and my vision tilted, shaky like a camera lens in an old horror movie. I was lying sideways on the ground, and I was scared again, so scared. I knew I needed to get up and get the hell out of there, but I couldn't move. I couldn't--- I opened my eyes and sat up, gasping. The air hung heavy in my room; the blackness felt tangible, thick.

There was a muffled knock at the door.

I froze. I thought about the horror movie again. There's a reason I don't watch those things, I thought to myself. I don't like standing here scared shitless in my own 300 square foot dorm room. I moved across to the door, flung it open, and stepped out into the hallway. The bulb was out again, and the one further down the hall was flickering now, too. "Fucking operations. They can keep a space station in orbit light-years away but they can't change a goddamn lightbulb."

I half-turned and was about to walk back into my room when I saw it.

I thought it was a shadow at first. Logical, right? Even Spock would say it was only natural to see shapes in the shadows, late at night. Down at the end of the hallway, this shadow grew. It looked--it was a man. It took a step forward, toward me, then another. Cold, sharp fear knifed through my chest and I tried to laugh it back down unsuccessfully. "You're out late, Cadet," I said hopefully, though something nagging at the back of my mind told me this was no one I knew.

Closer now, ten feet down the hall, maybe. It leaned heavily against the wall and I thought I could hear it breathing wetly. As it slid underneath the one good bulb, dull gold gleamed under weird light, dull gold stained with red and...no.

I said it out loud. "No. It can't be. You're dead, you're..."

As it turned out, George Kirk had nothing much to say to that.

He stood and stared at me, unblinking.

Now, I'm a doctor. I've dealt with plenty of emergency situations--hell, I used to work the ER at the busiest trauma center in the Atlanta Metro area. And I never froze, not once. But now? Now I stood rooted to the spot, weighing my options. One motion to cross back into my room. One more to pull the door closed, another to lock it. But it was goddamned dark in my room, and I didn't know how fast that thing with Kirk's face could move.

"W-what do you want?"

I didn't see his--its--mouth open. The voice was a dull rasp, and I heard it like it was inside my head.

"Mark me."

And it started sliding back down the hall.

"Wait--" I tried to call out, but my throat was dry from fear and sleep, and nothing came out. It was off at the end of the hall now, down where the light died. As I watched, it lurched back into the shadows and was gone.

***

I didn't sleep again that night. Instead, I stood staring out the window to the east until a smear of pink started across the horizon. Then I dressed and left my room. In the turbolift, I rested my forehead on the cool wall.

I was looking at the ground when Spock fell into step with me, crossing a green square of lawn on the way to the medical building. The grass was still wet and little pieces of it clung to his boots and the hem of his blacks.

"Were you able to locate Cadet Kirk?"

"Haven't seen him."

Truth was, I hadn't much tried. After Gaila's I'd gone over to Jim's room, knocked once, then leaned against the door for a while. I knew his key code but something stopped me from letting myself in.

Spock was quiet for a minute. I didn't look at him. The clinic replicator was on the fritz yesterday; I hoped to God it was back up now. I needed a cup of coffee.

"You and I, Dr. McCoy, are not 'friends'. While I acknowledge that the human concept of friendship is not one with which I am strictly familiar, Cadet Uhura—Nyota---speaks highly of you, and of your relationship with Cadet Kirk."

"Yet somehow I don't think we're taking a morning stroll so that you can pat me on the back for being Jim's good buddy."

"On the contrary, Doctor. I believe that your relationship with Cadet Kirk has been instrumental in his continued success at Starfleet in the face of his recent personal tragedy. The circumstances surrounding Captain Kirk's sudden death are most… unfortunate."

I could hear him choosing his words, sifting through that great Vulcan brain of his. Trying to spare my messy human emotions, or maybe just to avoid them. Thinking about it pissed me off.

"Make your point, Spock. I've got rounds in five minutes."

"Six. As I said, Captain Kirk's death was sudden. It was also, as it happens, quite mysterious."

"What's so mysterious about a Klingon ambush?"

"Nothing. The official record indeed states that the USS _Dauntless_ was ambushed by a Klingon cruiser. However, I have recently become privy to certain details that indicate that the incident may not have been quite as it appeared."

"And those are?'

"Starfleet Command has recovered the _Dauntless_' communications logs originating from just prior to its' destruction. You know that the presence of the Klingon vessel was corroborated by the _Valiant_. However, examination of these logs reveals that the ship that destroyed the _Dauntless_ may not have been Klingon in origin at all."

"But that's impossible- the _Valiant_ was the only other ship anywhere near the _Dauntless_ when it was blown up."

"The _Dauntless_' recovered logs name a small mining vessel that was also in the area- they made contact just before their signal went black. We have been able to gain access to _that_ ship's logs, and they tell a very different story."

"But there's no record of any other ship besides the _Valiant_ with the kind of firepower necessary to disable a Federation starship, let alone blast it to smithereens."

Spock gave me a sharp look. "Precisely."

"Harper's on the _Valiant_," I muttered to myself. "Frank."

I stopped walking, turned. I wanted to get right up in Spock's face, shake some of that damn cool out of him. "Goddammit, man, do you know what you're saying? And how do you even know about this?" Spock had done well for himself at the Academy, but he wasn't that high up the food chain yet.

"I cannot reveal precisely how I came by this information. Suffice it to say Cadet Kirk and I have a mutual acquaintance. This individual is as concerned with Kirk's wellbeing as yourself."

Okay, Pike, probably. "But not you. Concerned about Jim's wellbeing, that is. " I couldn't resist.

Spock gave me a blank look. "Cadet Kirk is exceptionally bright. While his methods are at times…unorthodox, I believe that in his case the ends largely justify the means."

"That didn't answer my question, but all right. Does he know about this?"

"I do not know. My source wished fervently that this information be kept from Kirk as long as possible."

"What, so he can keep on keeping on, being 'Fleet's golden boy? Jim deserves to know the truth. 'Ends justify the means' is right. You fucking officers, you're all the same."

"You forget yourself. You too are an enlisted officer."

"Yeah, well. I'm also a doctor. You know what doctors live by, Spock? 'First, do no harm'. And I can tell you right now: when this hits the fan—and it will—there's going to be a goddamn shit-storm of harm."

"More than has been caused already? Jim Kirk was arguably a hairsbreadth away from assaulting a fellow cadet last night. I am concerned for the safety of Cadets Gaila and Uhura, not to mention—"

"Is that what this is about? You worried about Jim making a move on your girlfriend?"   
I was missing the point; we both knew it. Spock remained infuriatingly calm.

"No good can come of your continuing to take responsibility for him. You are compromised, doctor. Your emotional attachment to—"

"My _what_? Don't you dare imply that there's anything abnormal about natural human affection, _Commander_. Just because your heart's a goddamn chunk of rust…" I stabbed a finger at Spock's chest, where his heart wasn't. Something about the touch gave me pause, and I took a step back. Spock did the same.

"This conversation is over," he said evenly. "You are an intelligent man, Doctor McCoy. I ask you to take another step back and consider what I have just told you."

He left me standing alone in the wet morning, in the stream of people just beginning the day. I waited, letting my pulse slow, then I flipped open my comm unit to call in to the clinic. I dialed the number, heard the day nurse pick up. "Hello? _Hello_?" Thinking better of it, I hung up. Jim was fine. Well, not today, maybe. But he'd _be_ fine. I'd keep my mouth shut about this whole debacle if it'd make Spock happy. And we'd go to Iowa, go to the reception, then get back here and get him through it. He was Jim. He'd be fine.

And I had a long day at the clinic to get to.

***

IOWA

I dropped my pack to the tarmac with a muffled thud, looking out over the parking lot. It was an asphalt oasis in a sea of green, the new growth stretching out to the horizon as far as the eye could see. I could barely make out the speck of a hawk soaring over the corn in search of an unlucky rat. Right this minute, I felt like the rat, only I wasn't sure quite where my hawk was coming from yet.

Jim looked down the road to the west. I wondered if he felt the same sense of foreboding. It hung in the air like heat and made it hard to move.

Jim strode to the edge of the platform and jumped off onto the grass, kicking at a clot of earth. "I think the buses run on the half hour," he offered.

"Did you happen to take a gander at the schedule before we left?"

"Um. No. I just sort of figured things would be the same as they were when I was here last."

_Yeah, well. Things change._ I wanted to say it, but I didn't. I was pretty sure he knew it, anyway.

"They have a service here?"

I saw him shake his head out of the corner of my eye. "Just San Francisco. But I think they're putting up a statue downtown or something. Someone forwarded me an article about it."

"Kid, when was the last time you talked to your mom? Or Sam?"

He ignored the first part of the question. "It's been awhile, " he said too casually. Then, sighing, "I haven't gotten a real comm from Sam since before the accident. But he's busy."

"You oughta track him down, Jim."

He nodded absently. Down the road, a silver speck began to materialize into a bus. It hovered next to the platform like a mirage. I hefted my pack onto the luggage rack and grabbed for Jim's. He stood still next to the platform, staring off into the distance. Maybe he was looking for the hawk. I saw it just to the east. It wheeled on an updraft and then dropped like a stone into the field below. Somewhere out there, a rat met a bitter end.

He got quieter the closer the bus got to town. It wasn't a long ride, but our bus wasn't exactly fresh off the assembly line. I could feel the dull rattle in of the engine in my teeth, and we felt more potholes than should've been strictly possible in a vee.

Jim didn't seem to notice the bumpy ride. He closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against the window, but something about the pattern of his breathing told me he was awake. Eyes still closed, he started to hum just as we passed into the city limits.

_So long, been good to know ya  
So long, been good to know ya  
So long, been good to know ya  
I've got to keep moving along._

He opened his eyes, turning to look at me.

"I wish this bus was going the other way."

"I know."

I hesitated a beat, then reached my hand across the seat to rest on his knee. Time seemed to slow, then stop. My hand was sweaty and I felt the dry weave of his jeans against the pads of my fingers, intersecting with the whorls of my fingerprints like the warp of a loom. Time—or the bus—lurched on again, and he met my eyes with a shocked expression, eyes wide.

"Bones?" he asked. "Do you believe in ghosts?"

I didn't answer. Out the window, clouds were gathering.

***

 

The bus let us off at a crumbling depot in the center of town and Jim started walking. Riverside was a nice enough place from the looks of it, but not exactly a bastion of public transportation. Jim shrugged when I mentioned it. "It's pretty rural, Bones. Enough people need vees for hauling and farmwork that they can give themselves a ride out to the shuttleport. And that's if they're leaving town at all."

I wondered how far it was out to the farm. Evidently there wasn't a huge market for cabs, either. "Is that why the reception's here, not in San Francisco? People not too keen on leaving? They could've had a pretty sweet ceremony, I bet. Ten-gun salute and all."

He snorted. "I think Mom's seen enough Starfleet pomp and circumstance for one lifetime. Besides, I think the ten-gun thing is just for funerals."

I couldn't think of anything to say to that.

The walk through town dragged. Eventually we left strip malls and apartment complexes behind and made our way out onto a long stretch of highway bordered with more cornfields on both sides. We walked in silence now, Jim's hands shoved deep in his pockets. He was brooding. We walked for a long time before we came upon a red mailbox at the mouth of a long drive that curled off into the corn like a river. I could see dark treetops cresting the green fields ahead.

"This is it," Jim said plainly. He took a step forward. I moved in front of him, put a hand on his shoulder.

"You sure about this?" I asked. He cast his eyes down to the dirt.

"Jim, I mean it. Look at me. You want to bag this, that's fine with me. We go back to town, I'll buy you a slice of pie at the diner, then we go back to the shuttleport. Call it a stroll in the countryside."

He looked up at me and something in his eyes gave me pause. It was a hardness I hadn't seen before. "It's okay, Bones. I think...I think I need this. I need to close the book on the past four months. Maybe not how I'd have written the ending, but what are you gonna do." His shoulders drooped a little, then he straightened himself and grimaced.   
He pointed off down the road.

"Onward."

I sighed. "You got it."

Winona Kirk married Captain Francis "Frank" Harper in a civil ceremony in Iowa City a week prior. I knew the date. That day Jim's communicator buzzed nonstop for hours before he finally gave in, turned it off, and tossed it under his bed. As we walked up to the house, cloaked in grime and sweat, we saw pale ribbons of crepe strung from tree to tree. They looked out of place, dangling over the shiny hovercars, as if someone had dragged old party decorations down from the attic.

"I know they're old-fashioned, but I always wanted to have a backyard reception," said a warm voice behind me. Winona. She carried a bucket of ice and her face was flushed. She looked like a girl out under the festooned trees.

"Mom," Jim said.

"Jimmy. You came," she said, her voice turning up as if in question.

He took a step closer to her, raised his arm and patted her shoulder like it was all he could manage. He stepped away clumsily with a shake of his head, looked up at the grey-green sky. "I think it's going to storm," he said.

She looked stricken for a moment before schooling her features and letting a smile settle back over them.

"Leonard, thanks for coming with him."

"No trouble at all, ma'am."

"Well, come on in. We've got beer out back, and Frank's grilling, and I think we finally got the kinks out of the replicator settings. Do you know, it got stuck on Rocky Road? Who likes marshmallows in ice cream?"

We followed her into the house, Jim's gaze fixed a step ahead of his feet on the red earth. It was late in the afternoon when the party swallowed us up.

The storm hovered as night fell, fat drops falling here and there, guests clutching their plates and looking up into the sky, drying to divine when to run for it. Eventually it drifted away, sparing the festivities. Later, I sat on the front porch, leaning against the house and watching lightning dance across the sky off to the west.

I'd spent hours watching the ebb and flow of conversation, the way people drifted through the yard in clumps. I drank a beer, then another, then another, til the warmth seeped into my bones and the knot in my stomach started to unravel. Maybe, I thought, we can just get through tonight and get back home tomorrow. Jim was nowhere to be found. There was a burst of raised voices from inside the house, the slam of a screen door. All the windows were open and the farmhouse had the feel of a brightly-lit tent, exposed on all sides. Jim tore around the corner of the house and off into the corn.

I stood and let my beer slide out of my hand. The bottle hit the porch with a clink, the soft fuzz of foam spilling over.

Out of the circle of light in the yard, the night was pitch-black. The cornfield was like a wall, and I felt my way around the perimeter, cursing, until I came upon the dark smudge of an opening, a path.

"Jim?" I called softly. "You down there?" I took a step forward.

To my left, something moved. The leaves rustled like wings. I thought about the thing I saw in the hallway—the vision, the ghost, whatever it was. I wondered if it came home to visit.

"Jim?' For fuck's sake, please.

"Hey," he said. His face and hands were pale smears in the darkness, fuzzy around the edges.

"Want to tell me what the hell is going on? You took off like a goddamn bat out of hell back there."

I heard him move, imagined his shrug. "It's like he never existed."

"What do you mean?'

"I tried to talk to her about him. About Dad. She looked at me like I was crazy, Bones. She did that nervous little 'look around and smile at the crazy person' thing people do when they're embarrassed. When they get called on the carpet and they don't have shit to say about it. You know what she said to me?"

"What?"

"She said I was ruining her party. That if I came here to make a scene, I shouldn't have come at all."

"It's her wedding, Jim."

"Yeah, I fucking know that, Bones, okay? I just think that maybe there should be some sort of acknowledgement that she didn't need another wedding until four fucking months ago. And don't tell me," he raised a hand as if warding me off, "don't tell me, Bones, that people deal with grief in different ways."

The trouble is, I thought, that people do.

He sat down. I knelt beside him, breathing into the quiet. When he spoke again, he sounded calmer.

"I heard something very interesting about Dad's accident."

"Who've you been talking to, Jim? You know how rumors get around at the Academy, and you know better than to—"

He laughed; the sound made my gut clench. "I can't reveal my sources, sorry.   
Besides," he scoffed, "you'd think I was as crazy as Winona does."

He took something out of his pocket, then, and laid it on his lap. There was no moon, but in the dregs of the ambient light from the house I saw the barrel gleam, and in that moment I knew. I'd miscalculated everything.

"What the fuck are you doing with that?"

"I knew there was something that didn't fit…I knew…"

"Jim, _what are you doing with that phaser?_"

"Will you tell them? Tell Starfleet. You have to make sure they know, Bones."

"What are you talking about? Jim, look, they know, Spock knows. We need to get back to San Francisco, and—"

He continued as if I hadn't spoken.

"You've been the best friend a guy could ask for. And I meant it when I said I was sorry for putting you through this."

"Jim, will you stop talking like that—"

I was glad it was so dark that night. He didn't have to see my face when he stunned me.

END


End file.
